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The 10 Most Important SEO Tips You Need to Know

A lot has changed in the world of search engine optimization – and there’s a lot of SEO tips out there.

However, certain fundamental principles remain unchanged.

For example, targeting keywords with the sole intent of improving organic rankings no longer works with search engines but choosing the right keywords is still an important piece to the puzzle.

Beyond getting SEO juice, keywords reveal a lot more about users and what they’re struggling with.

With so many SEO techniques, it’s become almost impossible to determine which ones to stick to and which you can safely ignore.

Is link building a thing of the past? Should you devote your time and energy to on-page SEO? How can you write a title tag to drive your rankings with search engines? Where do SEO and social media intersect?

And, seriously, what are the truly best SEO tips that’ll lead to results? 

Both B2B and B2C marketers want more search leads, because they result in 8.5X more clicks than paid search results.

Brian Dean did a fabulous job when he created a post showcasing 200 Google ranking factors. The post went on to become extremely popular and generated thousands of new leads from organic search for Brian.

This article may not be as in-depth as Brian’s, nor will I be answering all of the questions raised above. Instead, I want to show you the 10 most important SEO tips you need to know to help your site rank right now.

If you focus on these techniques alone, you’ll definitely drive more organic traffic to your blog and improve your search rankings without risking a Google penalty.

Let’s get started: 

1. Remove Anything that Slows Down Your Site

Page speed is a critical factor in SEO.

In the past, you could get away with a slow-loading site. I recall when I had to wait for about five minutes before a popular news site fully loaded.

I’m sure you can relate to that.

That’s never a good experience but it’s the kiss of death in today’s marketplace.

A slow page frustrates users and ultimately discourage people from buying your product.

Data from Strange Loop shows that a mere one-second delay in page load time can yield a whopping 7% loss in conversions.

In the mind of potential buyers, a slow site is an untrustworthy site. Period.

Page speed is vital to search engines, too. According to eConsultancy, “40% of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load.”

As businesses become more aware of the opportunities to generate targeted leads and increase revenue through search engine optimization, there is a huge demand for speed.

10 years ago on April 9, 2010, Google included site speed as one of the all-important ranking factors.

This means that if your pages are slow, you’re fighting a losing battle for top organic listings, regardless of the quality of your content or your professional website design.

Get rid of non-essential elements that slow down your site. If you’re a WordPress user, consider deactivating plugins you don’t actually need.

Also, declutter your sidebar and put only essential widgets there.

To learn how to get more out of search engines by improving your page speed, visit Ubersuggest.

Step #1: Enter Your Domain and Click Search

Step #2: Click Site Audit in the Left Sidebar

Step #3: Scroll Down to Site Speed

This shows how quickly your site loads and how quickly key elements become available to users.

My desktop loading time is one second and my mobile loading time is two seconds. Both of these fall within the “excellent” range. As a general rule of thumb, if your site speed doesn’t score as “excellent”, you should make changes to improve it.

Review the advanced breakdown for additional guidance. For example, “speed index” shows how quickly the content of a page is visibly populated. If your website is lagging behind here, there’s a good chance visitors are leaving because they don’t want to wait for your content to load.

Every additional 0.5s it takes to load your site drastically increases the number of visitors that will leave your site. So, even an improvement of 0.5 seconds will increase traffic to your website.

2. Link to Other Websites with Relevant Content

Brian Clark, founder of Copyblogger Media says:

Linking out to other blogs is critical to growth.

Some people think, linking out to relevant and authoritative content pages is bad because it takes people off your page.

But, I don’t think so. Link building remains a fundamental part of smart search engine optimization strategy. I link out to tons of high-quality sites and sources, including my direct competition.

Why? Because it helps you, my reader.

According to Rand Fishkin, founder of Moz,

Linking out sends trackable traffic, it makes your site a more valuable and scalable resource.

If you’ve been reading my blogs, you’ll notice that I regularly link out to different sites. Whenever I write a new post, I reference other trustworthy sites, where appropriate.

You can’t expect to get from others if you’re unwilling to give first. For example, if you’re looking to get inbound links from authoritative blogs, one of the easiest ways to do that is to show your willingness to link out to those blogs from your own content.

Of course, you should only link out to content pages that offer tremendous value. It’s a good SEO practice.

More important, you can notify an influencer when you link out to them, and, if your post is valuable, they can link back to you, share the post, or even email it to their huge email subscriber list.

Link building is also all about quality, not quantity. You’ll build more trust in your niche if you have a few authoritative links rather than a dozen poor quality links.

3. Write for Humans First, Search Engines Second

Lately, I’ve noticed that more and more bloggers and content creators are going back to the old method of SEO, where keywords meant to drive search results surpassed the real qualities of engaging, valuable content. If that’s you, it’s absolutely time to change your mindset.

Many people still aren’t capitalizing on long-tail keywords, preferring instead to attempt to manipulate search engines.

That’s the wrong approach.

Don’t prioritize search engines over the actual humans reading your work. Instead, write content for the user, people who have eyes to read and credit cards to purchase your product.

Search spiders are just scripts — they don’t buy products, they don’t engage with you on social media, and they won’t become a loyal customer. 

Copyblogger is my #1 go-to site when it comes to putting readers first. No wonder Brian Clark is so successful at content marketing. He’s even turned Copyblogger into a multi-million dollar digital marketing company.

It all happened because a marketer like you was passionate about helping people. That’s what drives me, too — and maybe you, as well.

So, what does it mean to write for users first, before search engines?

Well, it’s simple.

Forget that Google and other search engines exist when you’re writing. Instead, create content that will help someone. This is known as SEO copywriting.

Funny enough, when you put users first, you’ll actually write helpful content that search engines reward because search engines follow users. It’s not the other way round. At the same time, you’ll be enhancing the user experience and building trust with your audience.

4. Encourage Other Trustworthy Sites to Link to You

To a large extent, inbound links are still the lifeblood of search engine rankings.

When you combine dofollow and nofollow links, you get a natural link profile that even Google will reward.

Content marketing is all about creating high-quality, engaging content that drives people to link to you and share your content on social media.

Do you know why so many bloggers link to my posts?

The major factor in my success is that I invest a lot of time, money, and resources into creating a single post or other piece of content.

How much effort do you suppose when in to creating, “The Complete Guide to Building Your Personal Brand”?

This wasn’t a post we threw together in an hour — it took several hours over several days to create this content.

When you’re at the forefront of your industry, creating useful content and linking to authoritative blogs, you’ll find that more people will link to you naturally. This is the essence of effective link building.

5. Have Web Analytics in Place at the Start

After defining your search engine optimization goals clearly, you need software to track what’s working and what’s not.

Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and other private web analytics software solutions can help you track your success.

Tools like Crazy Egg also show you where your site visitors are clicking and how they navigate away from your site.

You should have these web analytics in place, even before you send the first visitor to your site or landing page.

6. Write Unique and Relevant Meta Descriptions for Every Page

One of the most important SEO tips that most people neglect is the well-crafted meta description.

The meta description is the first section that people see when Google serves up your page to search users.

Generally, the search engine giant doesn’t like duplicate content. Yes, there are times when there is a need to cite a paragraph or sentence from another site (and link back to the source), but if publishing duplicate content becomes your way of life, you will find it nearly impossible to become a long-term success.

In the same vein, duplicate meta descriptions could get you into trouble. But, even if you don’t get penalized straight away, you’re still not providing a great user experience. 

You can’t have the same meta description for a page that talks about email marketing and a page on making sales. There’s a big difference in those topics and your meta descriptions should communicate that fact.

If you’re a WordPress user, you can fix duplicate meta descriptions by installing the All-In-One-SEO Pack or Yoast plugins.

Then, in your WordPress editor, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and add a unique title tag and meta description.

7. Use a Simple, Readable URL Structure

If users can’t read or understand your URL, then search engines may be confused as well. 

Just check out the URL of this article: https://ift.tt/2x21mSu.

Granted, the URL above is long, but it’s easy to understand, for both users and search engines. There are no numbers or characters, other than the words and dashes.

Stay away from page URLs like this:

https://ift.tt/21PipOy

Those numbers don’t tell users anything about what to expect from the content.

Remember, search engines follow search users.

Brian Clark once said that Google bots are like infants who need to be spoon-fed regularly. And, he’s right.

Even in this age of search evolution, including RankBrain, search spiders are still programs, not humans. You need to guide them accordingly.

Brian Dean’s structure is what people should be doing and what I do, as well. He ensures that only two to four words are included in any URL.

This makes the URL memorable to the user, search engine-friendly, and easy to type. Copyblogger does the same thing:

Also, avoid stop words like a, an, the, but, or in.

You can learn more about optimizing your page URLs from this infographic:

8. Build Momentum with Social Signals

Social media is an integral part of SEO strategy and social signals are important. You’ve got to focus on increasing yours.

It’s true that Google hasn’t added social signals into their ranking algorithm factors, but I’ve personally seen that social signals do impact search engine rankings.

Don’t believe me?

Well, several case studies have proven the impact of social shares, likes, tweets, and pins on search engine rankings.

As an example, Moz started to rank on Google for “Beginner’s Guide” after Smashing Magazine tweeted out the guide. Shrushti’s search rankings improved from page 400 to page one of Google due to social media.

If you want to get more social signals, the rules haven’t changed. Here’s the summary:

• Create useful content that’s share-worthy across your social media platforms.
• Add share buttons to your post and make them visible.
• Encourage people to share, by asking them to.
• Host a social media contest to get more shares.
• Mention and link to social media influencers/power users in your post and notify them.

Social media is at your disposal. Use it, and use it well.

9. Use the Right Keywords in Images

Images are important in search engine optimization.

Google dedicated an entire section of its search results to images. This should tell you how concerned the search engine giant is with pictures.

When users are looking for a particular image, what do they search with?

Keywords.

For this reason, you should use the right keywords in your image names and accompanying text (like the caption). Of course, this is not permission to engage in keyword stuffing.

However, if your image is of a “blue women’s hat,” don’t name your image “click here to buy hat.”

Always remember that in image search engine optimization, relevance is more important than creativity or cleverness.

10. Publish Unique Content Consistently to Improve SEO

According to the Content Marketing Institute, producing unique and engaging content is a challenge for most marketers.

Whether you’re a B2B or B2C marketer, you need to be disciplined, when it comes to content creation.

It’s even more important than you might think, due to something called the “fresh factor.”

Unique content is one of the factors that affect this freshness score, and, consequently, the search engine rankings for that specific page.

If you’re not Brian Dean, who’s mastered the art of content promotion and can regularly get tens of thousands of users to read a new post and share it with others on social media, the easiest way to optimize your freshness score is by creating content consistently.

If you’ve chosen to market your business online, then creating unique and helpful blog posts isn’t an option — it’s a must.

Bonus SEO Tip: Don’t Change Your Domain Name Regularly

The age of a domain or web page is also one of the top SEO tips you should keep in mind. Indeed, it’s crucial for your success.

For this reason, don’t constantly change your domain name. Pick one and stick with it, unless there’s a very good reason to change.

That does happen — just don’t make it a regular practice.

Conclusion

I hope you’ve found these SEO tips helpful. If you follow the tips above, you’ll be on your way to higher rankings and more traffic.

Here’s a few final tips to help you reach your target audience:

If you’ve published a post in the past that’s no longer relevant to users, especially due to the recent Google changes, work to update that page. Or worst-case scenario, 301 redirect it to a newer, fresher piece of content on your site.

That way, you can retain the backlinks, social media shares, and other on-site engagement metrics it’s already earned.

Finally, learn to focus on and create content around long-tail search phrases (e.g., social media marketing techniques), and not head keywords (e.g., social media).

When link building, think quality, not quantity. And, don’t forget to make your web pages mobile-friendly.

If you’d like help with your SEO, reach out to my team.

Which other search engine optimization tips or techniques do you think are most crucial for improving search rankings? Are there any SEO tips that have worked against you? 

The post The 10 Most Important SEO Tips You Need to Know appeared first on Neil Patel.

source https://neilpatel.com/blog/10-most-important-seo-tips-you-need-to-know/

Best Small Business CRM Software

Disclosure: This content is reader-supported, which means if you click on some of our links that we may earn a commission.

Most small business owners that I know want more, happier customers.

Customer relationship management (CRM) software is designed to help companies with that exact goal. So why aren’t they using it?

My guess is that it’s because CRM software has a reputation for being massive, expensive, and really challenging to use.

That was true, but it’s not anymore.

In fact, there are dozens of CRM software solutions that small businesses can start using this afternoon. They’re affordable, sleek, and ready to help teams connect with customers on their own terms.

Here’s my list for the best CRM software choices to take your small business to the next level.

The Top 4 Options For Small Business CRM Software

1. HubSpot – Best for scaling quickly
2. Nutshell – Best for B2B sales teams
3. Less Annoying CRM – Most affordable solution for sales and marketing
4. Nimble – Best for teams using Microsoft 365

How to Choose the Best Small Business CRM Software for You

A small business owner could spend a full year trying out every CRM software option, and they might make it through a quarter of the products available right now.

To find a product that’s going to work—without spending a lifetime doing it—you’ll need to focus on what’s really going to really add value, save time, and provide useful insight for your company.

Right out of the gate, you are going to be able to eliminate some otherwise decent options by looking at how the nuts and bolts line up with your specific situation. 

I’ve called these the essential considerations. With CRM software for small business, these points are even more important. Here’s why:

• Ease-of-use: Everyone using the CRMs has to input accurate information or the platform will be useless. Avoid an elaborate onboarding process for every hire by finding something that’s easy enough for non-techies to use and troubleshoot issues on their own.
• Integrations: A CRM has to tie into the tools you are already using. Direct integrations are great because DIY and API integrations can easily break at scale. Centralizing the tools a small business uses is better than adding to the stack.
• Channels: A CRM has to collect customer information no matter where it’s coming from—talk, text, chat, social, and so on. If it can only connect with a limited number of the channels you use, information will be incomplete, and customer experience fragmented.
• Price: If growth is the goal, the platform you choose should fit your budget moving forward. Cost may vary based on numbers of users, contacts, emails, etc. Budget this out to avoid hitting annoying limits or having to switch CRMs. No small business wants to spend resources migrating their customer data while they’re trying to grow.

There may be a CRM that strikes you as very appealing until you discover that the must-have integrations and channels are not available. It’s better to double-check the essential considerations before getting into the nitty gritty.

Once you find a shortlist of products that satisfy these, then it’s time to look at how each product manages the three core responsibilities of CRM software as they relate to your business: contact management, process automation, and reporting & business intelligence.

Organizing and tracking contacts

The chief responsibility of CRM software is to help companies organize and track every contact in their database. How they accomplish this goal is a little different from one platform to another.

Small business owners need to ask the following questions about each option:

• Will it help teams grow their contact list? Look for sites, landing pages, forms, and other touchpoints where interested customers can find the business and establish a connection.
• Will it help teams refine their contact list? Look for products with robust segmentation features.
• Will it help teams manage their contact list? Look for tools that allow users to make notes, set appointments, and schedule calls directly within the interface.
• Will it provide teams with real-time customer insights? Look for tools that make entire customer histories available no matter where users are working (inbox, chat, phone, etc.)
• Will it help teams meet their goals? Look for options that provide frameworks for reaching objectives like closing deals, resolving customer problems, and nurturing long-term relationships.

When it comes to CRM software, small businesses need a tool that’s going to help them reach all those bolded objectives.

For some, this is going to entail a sales pipeline and marketing automation features. Others may be more focused on outfitting an ultra-responsive help desk. Some may need all of it.

Some will also come with outreach tools you can use on social media, turning passerbys on Twitter and Facebook into your next customer. 

Start with your customer-focused goals, and work backwards from there to figure out which CRM software is going to really help your teams stay on top of every relationship.

Process automation

Generally speaking, there are two different levels of automation that come with CRM software. Both can make a big difference to small businesses.

The first is automating routine tasks like data entry. 

These platforms create contacts automatically whenever a rep or agent starts a conversation with a customer who is not in the database. Instead of having to go in and create a customer, the CRM software auto-generates a new profile or gives a user the option to create it in a single click. 

Some CRMs look at the domain on the email, scour public databases, and fill in as much information as possible on its own. Some will automate list segmentation, which essentially groups customers based on criteria you set, such as age, gender, buying habits, or location.

A marketing team that wants to get thousands of emails out to interested customers can query the CRM based on relevant criteria (for example, customers who subscribed in the last 90 days) and their list is ready to go.

Each minute saved is more time to generate leads, close deals, and resolve issues. Plus, all the customer data is right there, all the time, with no extra time spent hunting it down.This is just one example, but good CRM software is constantly working behind the scenes to eliminate many of the routine tasks, saving minutes during every interaction.

It also makes automating workflows a very powerful capability. The marketing team that just generated a list of thousands of recent subscribers can begin an automated email campaign instantly.

As contacts enter the sales pipeline, tasks can automatically be assigned to the right rep. When a customer has a problem, they can automatically be routed to the right agent.

From streamlining customer onboarding processes to closing more deals quickly, CRM software can help small businesses do more with less..

Reporting and business intelligence

CRM software gets loaded with information that can help small businesses make decisions about where to focus their energy and resources.

This goes way beyond simple metrics like conversion rates. Say you want to increase the number of customer service interactions that are resolved on the first call. CRM software can provide the information necessary for teams to see what tactics are working and pivot accordingly.

With segmentation features and a rich picture of each relationship, you can really drill down into why some leads are converting and others are not. 

Some of the more robust CRM platforms come with rich analytics features that convert overwhelming amounts of customer data into clear visualizations. Many let you customize dashboards to track key metrics, turning your database into actionable insights.

The Different Types of Small Business CRM Software

For a lot of SMBs, the really ritzy CRM software is not a feasible option. 

Taking the prohibitively expensive and chunky products off the table, there are two types of CRM software that work great for small businesses. These will keep costs reasonable without sacrificing on the important functions that companies need.

Free CRM software

I’ve blogged about the best free CRM software, which can be an amazing zero-cost solution for small businesses.

They can handle the core CRM duties, like contact organization and tracking, as well as other features that vary depending on the platform. Some have sales pipelines, others have helpdesk features geared toward customer service.

There are limits, sure. The reporting won’t be as detailed and there’s definitely less ability to customize the platform. But depending on an organization’s needs, these free forever products can work for months, if not years.

And even when they won’t work as a long-term solution, these options actually give people a chance to really understand the tools. Instead of testing the product during a 2-4 week trial, companies can see how it performs across a few business cycles.

Specialized CRM software

Marketing teams need to start relationships with customers they don’t know yet. So the toolkit they need is going to be different from customer service, even if they are doing a lot of the same things, like organizing contacts, responding to emails, and sharing content.

To this end, some of the most useful CRM software for small business is built to serve the specific needs of different departments. These are:

• Sales CRM software
• Marketing CRM software
• Customer service CRM software

Specialized CRM software may come as a standalone solution, like Nutshell, or as a modular part of a larger system that can be purchased individually.

Hubspot, for example, offers CRM software for marketing, sales and customer service. People can pick one, two, or all three of these modules.

#1 – HubSpot — Best for scaling quickly

HubSpotCRM is the option for small businesses that are on the fence about whether or not they need dedicated CRM software. 

First of all, their freemium plan is bananas in terms of how much they give you. You get chatbots, sales pipelines, and literally dozens of other features you would normally have to pay for. 

On top of that, you get unlimited users and it’s free forever, so you don’t have to worry about how many contacts you make while you’re trying to grow.

When you are ready, you can upgrade individual “Hubs” to get advanced tools for sales, marketing, customer service, and content management. Only pay for what you need.

Okay, so let’s take a look at how the free HubSpotCRM can make an impact on day one.

Inside a HubSpot-enabled inbox, for example, users can see every contact’s history in a sidebar. This includes past interactions (across any channel), but also recent activities from the contact’s social channels.

It provides every HubSpot user with up-to-date customer insight no matter where they are working. Whether they are chatting with a confused customer or crafting a proposal, agents and reps can deliver personalized, relevant information with ease.

HubSpot can do this because everything is centralized within a client record in the CRM. Every ticket, conversation, and email is captured and organized without any legwork.

Cutting down on data entry frees people up, giving them more time to dedicate to each client. 

In addition to phenomenal contact management, there is a ton more functionality in their free plan, which includes:

• Ticketing
• Live chat and conversational bots
• Reporting dashboards
• Gmail and Outlook integration
• Email tracking and notification
• VoIP calling

There’s even more on top of that, believe me. 

It will take a little time for users to get fully acquainted with everything that’s included. One, because there is so much, and two, because HubSpot has their own jargon and way of doing things known as inbound marketing.

This isn’t a downside at all, considering how many companies have used inbound marketing to explode their customer base. 

If you are already all about inbound marketing, HubSpot is far and away the obvious choice for CRM software. And even if you aren’t, the platform is flexible enough to work for any strategy, and easy enough to get people onboard. 

With the premium Hubs, you’ll be able automate processes by  building out workflows for customer service, sales automation, marketing automation, email automation, and more.

Looking at pricing for the paid plans, the Starter Growth Suite is a great option for small businesses that will benefit from Hubspot’s premium features. It starts at $50/month, and comes with additional features for sales, marketing, and customer service.

For companies that are already using HubSpot’s marketing and sales tools, the addition of their CRM software is a no-brainer. 

For teams new to CRM, HubSpot’s freemium plan is really generous. A small business will be able to get a good sense of whether or not they like the HubSpot way of doing things.

And if they like HubSpot, nothing else will do. Try it for free today.

#2 – Nutshell — Best for B2B Sales Teams

Nutshell offers a nice balance of user-friendliness and sophistication that works extremely well for B2B sales teams.

Reps get the information, support, and collaborative tools they need to start selling smarter, even over a long sales cycle. 

B2B deals take time and engagement with various stakeholders throughout the process. Keeping track of everything that’s involved across multiple deals is hard. 

Nutshell keeps important people and conversations from falling through the cracks. Their CRM interface is really welcoming (your reps will actually want to use it) and their mobile app is just as good.

Edit contacts, log meeting notes, receive alerts, and scan business cards to create new leads, all directly within the iOS or Android app.

Lots of CRM software options come with mobile apps, but not all of them have a great reputation. HubSpot, for example, has a lot of work to do in this area, whereas Nutshell provides a best-in-breed service.

Sales reps need the ability to provide a quote without having to call back to the office. With the Nutshell mobile app, they can access client information, product catalogs, and generate a quote on the spot.

The iron doesn’t stay hot forever, especially in a crowded space full of competitors that are reaching out to your customers on every channel.

Nutshell is also loaded with tools that help B2B sales teams coordinate. Never miss another lead, double-book an appointment, or forget to touch base with features including:

• Customizable sales pipelines
• Leaderboards
• Communication histories
• Activity reminders
• Team @mentions and alerts
• Click-to-call and phone recordings

The reporting and performance tracking features make sales management more efficient and productive over the long term. 

Sales leaders get both real-time insights from customizable dashboards and the ability to pull reports about new leads, losses, win-rate, pipeline growth, sales cycle size, and more.

Pricing for Nutshell is really straight forward:

• Starter: $19/month per user
• Pro: $35/month per user

With Starter, you get a sleek, no-frills CRM software solution that will work wonders for your sales team. With Pro, you get many more tools for sales automation, including:

• Guided sales process builder
• Automated lead assignment, advancement, and pipeline distribution
• Post-sale lead management

Nutshell syncs with G Suite, Microsoft 365, Outlook, and Exchange. They also offer one-click integrations with the best email marketing services, like MailChimp and Constant Contact, as well as other important business tools like Slack and Quickbooks.

Out-of-the-box, no other small business CRM software is as well designed for the challenges that face smaller B2B sales teams. It comes down to the fully-functional mobile app, the collaborative tools, and the rich sales reporting.

Nutshell is like getting the best parts of Salesforce at a fraction of the price. It won’t work across the entire organization as well, but for a B2B-focused sales team, everything is right there. The only difference is that Nutshell is much easier to use and doesn’t require a developer to set up.

Nutshell’s customer support is always available by phone, email, or chat, and there is a comprehensive self-service knowledge base online. They also offer free data importing assistance when you sign up, making the transition as smooth as possible.

Empower your sales team and start your 14-day free trial of Nutshell today.

#3 – Less Annoying CRM — Most Affordable Solution for Sales and Marketing

Less Annoying CRM has one goal and I bet you can guess what it is.

It’s a simple platform with transparent, affordable pricing. They know that small businesses need a CRM solution but can’t spend all of their money or time on software. 

Enter Less Annoying CRM, or LACRM for short.

This is a low-cost, high-performance tool for managing and organizing all of a company’s contacts in a single platform. Users sign into their LACRM workspace and are instantly brought up to speed about all their most important customer relationships.

There is an agenda of their events for the day, a prioritized task list, a pipeline report, and an activity report. Individuals can see the status of all their activities and leaders will also be able to see the activity status of anyone they manage.

Say goodbye to post-it notes and forgotten conversations. 

Every task, appointment, and document can be linked to an individual contact or company. Because every member has all the information they need in front of them, there’s no more emailing back and forth to figure out a course of action.

I really recommend LACRM for companies that want to make the lives of their sales and marketing teams more manageable, but don’t want to pay through the nose. It’s not the most visually appealing platform on the market, and the email integration can be finicky at times.

There’s also no customer service module. This is something to keep in mind if you plan on having a unified CRM in the future, as LACRM does not have pre-built integrations for other CRM or help desk software.

Still, for sales and marketing, LACRM is stocked with features to increase outreach and drive sales, including:

• Built-in calendar
• Customizable pipelines
• Role-based access control
• Customizable fields for contacts
• Email integration
• Integration with MailChimp

LACRM is definitely a pipeline-focused product, which is great for sales. But it’s really flexible. Teams can use the platform to develop referral programs, loyalty programs, as well as track customer feedback and marketing expenses.

The price of LACRM is $15/month per user. End of story. There are no contracts, pricing tiers, usage limits, or upsells.

It’s not going to work as well for larger companies with complex reporting and automation requirements. For smaller businesses and teams, though, LACRM is winning over users everyday.

It’s just the tool they are looking for, at a price that makes sense.

Their focus on being less annoying extends to their customer service. When you sign up, they take pains to make the process as easy as possible, reaching out and assisting wherever you need help.

Updates are seamless and free. Your data is always backed up on multiple Amazon Web Services servers.

If less annoying sounds good, you can try their platform free for 30-days without giving your credit card information. After that, it’s a predictable monthly payment with absolutely no surprise charges.

#4 – Nimble — Best for Teams Using Microsoft 365

Nimble is a great CRM for small businesses that don’t want to change the way they do business. It has integrations with more than 160 business apps that will pull all of your contacts, conversations, appointments, inboxes, and social media connections into a single interface.

For teams that are using the Microsoft 365 productivity suite (formerly Office 365), Nimble is simply the best CRM. 

Tools like Microsoft Outlook are set up to handle basic contact management needs, but users constantly find that they have to Google information or keep multiple tabs open to track everything they need.

With Nimble enabled, Outlook is smarter. The Nimble sidebar contains rich information about each contact, as well as any linked appointments, deals, events, and so on.

Instead of the basic info, Nimble provides a full digital dossier of the contact, which is always up to date across your Microsoft environment. Whether you are working in Teams, SharePoint, or Dynamics, all of the information you need is within the interface.

Think of it as the missing CRM piece for Microsoft 365. Your teams can still work the way they always have, but now they get features like:

• Sales pipelines
• Intelligent email tracking
• Activity reminders, alerts, and notifications
• List segmentation features
• Sales and customer dashboard
• Sales forecasting and analytics
• Group email marketing

Nimble doesn’t have a dedicated customer service module, so I really recommend it on its sales and marketing merits. If you really need customer service, HubSpot has you covered and provides a similar feel, though the Microsoft 365 integration is not as tight.

The pricing for Nimble Business starts at $19/month per user. One thing to note is that each user gets 2GB of storage, after which it is $10/month per 10 GB of additional storage. 

Nimble works with G Suite, as well, but the Microsoft 365 integration is more complete, making it a better choice for companies that have already invested time and energy in the Microsoft ecosystem.

Try Nimble free for 14 days to see if your teams reap the benefits of a more streamlined experience.

Microsoft may release CRM software one of these days, though it will probably cost a lot more than Nimble and come with features no small business is asking for. 

Summary

I started blogging more than 10 years ago. Just me and a screen. 

My business has a lot of moving parts now. Though it’s still “small” by the industry standard of less than 50 people, we communicate with thousands of customers every hour through our content, emails, newsletters, and podcasts.

Small teams need powerful tools when it comes to managing customer relationships. All of these CRM options provide the features necessary for teams to stay organized as they grow.

For teams looking to expand their outreach, Less Annoying CRM is going to get the job done at a really competitive price. As they benefit from being able to connect with more customers, they can bring on new team members at the same low rate.

Teams that are working in a Microsoft environment should shortlist Nimble. It’s been engineered to work across the Microsoft environment, meaning teams aren’t going to have to change their processes to get onboard.

For B2B sales teams, Nutshell is purpose-built to handle the long, unpredictable sales cycle. The collaborative tools and powerful mobile app enable every rep to be ready to strike when the iron is hot.

If you are looking for a full-stack CRM solution, HubSpot is the choice for small business. The freemium plan is second to none, in terms of depth, and it’s the only option on this list that has a dedicated customer service module.

The post Best Small Business CRM Software appeared first on Neil Patel.

source https://neilpatel.com/blog/best-small-business-crm-software/

Going Beyond FAQ: How to Use the Q&A Format in Your Content

People have questions, and they want answers to those questions. When they do, where do they go?

Well, they usually go to someone who has the answer, and if you’re lucky, that someone might be you.

The Q&A format provides a great way for you to answer many queries in a short amount of time. Best of all, you don’t even need to have the answers if you know how to find someone who does.

What is the Q&A Format, and Why is It Important?

Q&A stands for “question and answer,” which is similar to a FAQ page, but it usually provides a more personal experience for the viewer or reader. This is because a Q&A format often makes it possible for whoever is looking to get involved in the question-and-answer process.

If you watched a video about building an affiliate site from scratch, you could come in armed with Q&A questions. Hopefully, you have the chance to ask some of them, and if not, it’s likely that other viewers will raise the same inquiries as you.

This type of content can be done in a live video, chat, text, social media event, prerecorded video, in-person event, and more.

From a content creator standpoint, this format can help you drive more traffic to your site and provide your audience with more of the information they want. Here are some specific reasons you should pay more attention to the Q&A format.

Q&As Can Optimize Content for Organic Search

As we know, FAQ sections and pages do a lot for our SEO. Q&As take on a similar shape by answering important questions raised about a specific topic.

They’re a great way to target long-tail keywords and land featured snippets through targeting “question-based” keywords.

For example, if we head over to Google and look up “how to upload an article into WordPress.”

You’ll find that the first result provides a direct answer to that question. When you’re putting together question-and-answer content you want to find relevant questions that other people are asking on Google so you can potentially rank for those searches.

If you scroll down a little more on the page, you’ll find a section titled “People Also Ask (or people also search for).” Google makes it so easy for us by telling us what other people are searching for related to the keyword you typed into the search box. So, you may want to include some of those phrases in your Q&A session as well.

While you’re doing all of this, you’re including a variety of long-tail keywords that you can convert into a blog post to include along with your video. This is a fast and simple way to put together a keyword-rich piece of content without having to do too much research.

Q&As Help Your Audience Understand Information Better

Google makes it pretty clear in their quality guidelines that they want you to produce content for users, not search engines. It’s our job as content creators to provide answers and solutions to whatever it is people want to know. The question-and-answer format is the perfect place for you to address a large number of questions in a short amount of time.

All in all, we know that Google wants us to write great content and provide answers to questions upfront. The algorithm doesn’t favor people who beat around the bush, drag things on, and fluff up their content.

The sooner you can get someone on your page and give them the answer they want, the better.

One potential way to do this is by answering as many questions as you can in the shortest amount of time while still maintaining proper quality control. Doing this increases your chances of ranking for all of those keywords while also providing a bunch of answers to queries that people may have.

Q&As Are Easy to Create

Question-and-answer content is easy and fast to create because it creates itself. Compared with a FAQ section where you need to know all the answers, all you need to know here are the questions.

You’ll do your research ahead of time by seeing what competitors are ranking for, who has the snippets you want, what does the “people also ask” section say, and so on.

From there, you’ll craft those questions in a way that appeals to both Google and the people. Doing this ensures you keep Google happy while providing valuable and direct information (that also keeps Google happy).

Once you’ve done that, it’s up to the interviewee to provide you with the answers. This is an enjoyable way to put together some extremely valuable content with commentary from industry experts.

You may even be able to rank some of your video content for voice search.

6 Ways to Use Q&As in Your Content

You understand the importance of Q&A interviews and you might even have some ideas as to how you’ll get started. Here are some simple and effective ways you can incorporate this format into your content.

Live Q&A Sessions

Within the live Q&A we have two subcategories. One is you’re the expert and people are asking you the questions. Two is you’re the creator and you’re asking the expert questions from the community.

Both of these methods work but they require their own set of steps to prepare.

You’re the Expert

If you have a skill, talent, or area of expertise, you can set up a live Q&A session on your YouTube channel, social media, or via a Zoom link to your list. The goal would be to preach the value of attending your live session so you get a lot of people to attend.

As the day rolls around, continue to send follow-ups via email and social media motivating your audience to sign up for the question-and-answer session. Prompt them to prepare some questions ahead of time because you’ll be answering as many as you can during the time slot.

Keep in mind that you won’t be able to prepare answers to the questions because you won’t know what people are going to ask. You’re firing straight off the cuff, which has its pros and cons.

On one side, you’re going to seem genuine because people know you’re pulling answers right off your head. On the other side, there’s more room for error if you don’t know the answer or you answer incorrectly.

Make sure you’re recording the interview and breaking it down well enough so you can convert it into a piece of content for your blog or website. You should be able to take many of the questions from the live session and convert them into rankable content.

You’re the Interviewer

In this scenario, you’re no longer the expert. You might be the one with a huge audience looking to bring valuable information to said audience.

Do some outreach and find an industry expert that you want to interview live in a Q&A format. This will provide value to your audience and you’ll also be able to discuss it ahead of time.

Now you can prepare questions that will work from an SEO standpoint while also providing initial value to the people who attend the live event. Your goal should be to ask questions that are related to the questions that people are asking on Google.

They don’t have to be word-for-word in the live event, but they need to be close enough so you can convert the video into written content.

Recorded Video Q&A Interviews

This strategy could be an extension of the previous method or one of its own. You can interview experts on industry topics, commonly asked questions, or go completely off the cuff and see where it goes.

If you recorded your live Q&A that we discussed previously, this could serve as your recorded video interview.

You can also start from scratch. This has a few pros and cons.

You’ll be able to prepare more and discuss with the interviewee so they are prepared for whatever you’re planning to ask. You can also do more SEO work ahead of time so you can easily convert the interview into a piece of rankable content.

The downside is that it might not appear as genuine and you won’t have the opportunity to engage with your audience live because they’ll be watching a replay.

If you’re using this format for the first time, this could be the way to go.

Written Q&A Interviews

A text interview will function the same as a video, except the conversation will be written in text. You can do this live or prerecorded as well.

There are many different formats in which you can do this; Facebook groups, Twitter threads, and Reddit to name a few.

Make sure you’re keeping tabs on the questions that are being asked and saving everything so you can convert the information into a blog post later on. You may even be able to use some of the questions asked in a live Q&A when you have more context about what people want to know.

Q&As in Content Headers

If you’re trying to rank content around popular questions, you’ll end up putting them in header form in your blog posts. This strategy functions much like a FAQ, but the difference is that you’re seeking the questions or answers from a separate source.

For example, if you’re the expert, you’ll want someone else to provide the questions. You can do a social media post or an email blast asking people for questions related to your area of expertise.

Once you’ve compiled enough questions, you can take them and build out a blog post with all the answers.

This works best when focusing on one narrow subject and ensuring that all the questions are relatable to your audience.

If you’re not the expert, you’ll want to follow the same steps but instead, reach out for questions to ask someone else. This person may be a popular figure that will draw attention.

As a result, when you do your outreach, people will be excited to ask this person their questions and will likely check in on your blog post when it’s up.

Ads and Social Media Campaigns

Expert interviews can give your brand a nice boost because the experts provide name recognition and visibility if they share it with their audience. This is a powerful way to build trust, create a buzz, answer audience questions, and rank for a variety of long-tail keywords, all at the same time.

The example above shows how an entrepreneur interviewed an industry expert and was able to provide a ton of value without having to actually know the subject himself. You can do this as well.

Best of all, it’s live without actually being live so you can prepare questions ahead of time and still be able to answer inquiries from the audience on the spot. This method allows you to control the quality of your answers, cater to the SERPs, and provide massive value to your audience.

Question Now; Answer Later

I like this method for YouTube, especially if you run a brand where people don’t often get to see “behind the curtain.” A lot of YouTubers do this when they provide a “day in the life” video.

You can create a social media post or send out an email to your list. Ask them what they want to know about you and what questions they have about you on a personal level.

Take a break from the business talk and allow your audience to get to know you. This can show that you’re relatable and people prefer to buy from people they know and trust.

Conclusion

There are really no limitations to what you can do with the Q&A format. Most importantly, it should be relevant to your brand and provide value to your audience.

If you can take the content and convert it into a blog post or repurpose it in some way, that’s a bonus.

Just remember that the featured snippets live in these Q&A sections so there’s a lot of ranking juice here if you can keep your question-and-answer sessions on topic with what people are asking Google.

Do you regularly create Q&A content? If so, what methods do you use?

The post Going Beyond FAQ: How to Use the Q&A Format in Your Content appeared first on Neil Patel.

source https://neilpatel.com/blog/qa-format/

10 Alternatives to Google Hangouts on Air

Google has an impressive resume of highly impactful, successful products. For instance, products like Google Search and Google Docs are used by millions around the world daily.

But no business is perfect. Even the most inspired innovation can fail if the market just doesn’t get into it. That’s why, over the last few years, Google has started to cut their losses and kill products that never quite hit the mark.

Google Play Music, Google Glass, and now Google Hangouts on Air have been retired, which may come as a surprise to users who relied on these products.

Don’t worry, though—it’s not all bad news! While you may have lost your favorite live-streaming service, there are plenty of Google Hangouts on Air replacements.

What Was Google Hangouts on Air?

Google Hangouts on Air launched in 2012, with Google adding live-streaming and community elements to their already existing Hangouts platform.

At the time, it made perfect sense. Effective live-streaming services weren’t particularly well-designed, so Google had a massive window to establish themselves in this space.

Their plan worked for a while. Google managed to get President Obama and Pope Francis to live-stream on its platform. Combine this with a list of solid support features, and Google Hangouts on Air managed to attract quite a few users.

This usage didn’t last long, though, as the market began to flood with competitors. Eventually, YouTube Live began to pick up steam, and live video was a more natural extension to that platform. Over time, it became clear Hangouts on Air should be absorbed by YouTube Live.

The 10 Alternatives to Google Hangouts on Air

Here’s a list of ten Google Hangouts on Air replacements on the market. Whether you’re live-streaming a podcast, a Q&A, or your cooking channel, you may find the tools you need here.

1. Be.Live

Be.Live is a simple, reliable streaming tool. If you’re looking to expand your audience and reach, Be.Live lets you stream on sites like Facebook Live and YouTube Live.

You can sign up using your Facebook or Google accounts and quickly set up your stream in either space.

Beyond that, there’s a surprisingly deep level of customization in Be.Live’s presentation. When you start using Be.Live, you’ll be able to add your logo, custom frames, and branding colors to the stream.

If you want to go even further, you can add name tags and agendas to the lower third of the screen during your streams. You can even download your streams in HD once they’re over and upload them to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Whether you’re looking to stream on Facebook Live or YouTube Live, Be.Live could be a strong Google Hangouts on Air replacement. You can try their basic plan for free to test it out yourself.

2. Discord

Discord is often seen as a gaming-centric platform. While there are certainly plenty of gamers using this service, what makes Discord stand out is their emphasis on two things: community and transparency.

This is a live-streaming tool that works best if your community is already on Discord. This doesn’t mean it’s off-limits to you if your audience doesn’t already use it, but it may take some extra legwork to get people on board.

If your audience and products revolve around gaming, you want to try Discord. It lets streamers display the games they play and the activities they’re engaging in. This is a fantastic Google Hangouts on Air alternative if you’re looking for a way to engage with this demographic.

3. Zoom

At this point, you’ve probably heard about Zoom. In fact, “zooming” seems to be the word used for video chatting, even if a different platform is being used! But there’s a good reason it’s on everyone’s mind: Zoom is a robust live-streaming product.

One of the most compelling points of replacing Google Hangouts on Air with Zoom Live is that many communities are already familiar with Zoom. Millions of people are using Zoom daily, whether for work, school, or catching up with old friends.

Getting users to adopt an entirely new service or tool can be challenging, no matter how loyal your community is. Zoom’s level of familiarity may make it easier to retain your audience while you transition from Google Hangouts on Air.

Zoom offers a variety of features like virtual hand raising and polling to keep your community engaged. The fact that they let you stream your webinars and meetings to multiple platforms simultaneously is just the icing on the cake.

4. Streamyard

Streamyard is built around a simple idea: create an experience for live streamers that’s easy to learn and use.

This platform doesn’t ask you to download anything; it runs in your browser. If you already have a following on LinkedIn, Facebook, or YouTube, you can live-stream to all of them using Streamyard.

Streamyard recognizes complexity makes it difficult for streamers to connect with their communities. If you’re looking for a Google Hangouts on Air replacement that removes technical barriers and limitations, this is a tool you’ll want to try.

With useful features like audience comments popping up on screen and call to action buttons in your streams, Streamyard simplifies your live-streaming process so you can focus on what matters most: your audience.

5. Talky.io

In the hunt for your Google Hangouts on Air alternative, you’re going to find lots of products that promise to offer more. Many alternatives promise more features and integration.

But Talky.io doesn’t take that approach. Instead, Talky addresses a smaller niche, focusing on providing a simple video chat tool designed for groups of up to 6 people.

What Talky lacks in features, it makes up for with its simplicity and ease of use. Using Talky is as simple as starting a chat and sending your room link to the people you need to chat with.

In a sea of feature-heavy tools, Talky might seem underwhelming at first. But if you’re looking for a Google Hangouts on Air replacement anyone should be able to use, this may be a fantastic option.

6. OBS Studio

For a lot of streamers, this is the gold standard of live-streaming tools. What makes OBS Studio so noteworthy? Simple: the customization.

Aside from being a free, open-source software you can download and start using instantly, it’s sponsored by some of the biggest names in live-streaming. Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch have all supported OBS Studio. It’s safe to say if you have a favorite streamer, they’re likely using this.

Who is OBS Studio for? Well, it’s technically for everyone looking to start live-streaming. This depth makes it such a powerful tool, but it can also present some issues.

Think of it this way: OBS Studio is like Photoshop, with most other alternatives being more like Canva. OBS Studio is often a great tool for veterans of the live-streaming world and those not afraid to get their hands dirty.

7. Twitch

Speaking of noteworthy live-streaming tools, we can’t ignore the current king of the live-streaming world: Twitch.

The company that put Mixer out of business, there’s no denying Twitch is one of the most popular live-streaming tools on the market. And while many think Twitch is a platform primarily about gaming, that’s not the case.

Businesses regularly promote their products on Twitch with marathons of shows. Art and philosophy streams have also started to take the spotlight, with a heavy emphasis on community engagement.

While it can be challenging to establish a presence on the site, success on Twitch may mean a massive increase in your community size and quality. It’s worth looking into if you’re looking for a Google Hangouts on Air replacement.

8. Spreaker

Spreaker does one thing, and they do it exceptionally well: it supports podcasts.

Whether you’re looking to host, create, distribute, or even monetize your podcast, Spreaker has something for you.

The reason Spreaker made the Google Hangouts on Air alternative list is simple: there aren’t enough tools dedicated to podcast live-streamers. What really makes Spreaker stand out is they go above and beyond for podcasters.

With Spreaker, you can publish your podcast quickly and easily using their Content Management System. From there, you can distribute your podcast across major podcast platforms.

Spreaker handles monetization, too, letting streamers auto-insert ads at any point in their podcasts.

If you’re serious about podcasting, Spreaker is a tool you should consider.

9. YouTube Live

If you’re wondering which of these tools Google wants you to use, it’s probably YouTube Live. Initially, Google tried to merge Google Hangouts on Air with YouTube Live, but the transition didn’t go incredibly well.

Still, there’s an appeal to using YouTube Live. Aside from the rich infrastructure YouTube and Google offer—plenty of features and a robust support system—live streaming on YouTube is made simpler by one thing: the platform understands user expectations.

When users are on YouTube, they already expect to consume content. This means when you create live content for them to engage with, it’s probably an easy transition for them to make.

Likewise, if you love the Google Hangouts on Air ecosystem, you’ll probably feel right at home in the relatively similar YouTube Live ecosystem.

10. Facebook Live

As far as innovation goes, Facebook Live doesn’t offer much that YouTube Live and Twitch don’t. That said, Facebook Live does have one ace up their sleeve: when you stream on this platform, you have access to billions of people.

We can argue about how impactful social media sites like Facebook have been in popular culture, but one thing is for sure: everyone and their grandmother is on Facebook. This means if you want access to a massive audience, being on Facebook may be a good idea.

Their live streaming tools aren’t as robust as others on this list, and the tools aren’t tailored to a particular industry or genre. But, Facebook has a reach that’s second to none.

Conclusion

Seeing your favorite live streaming platform vanish is frustrating. But there’s no reason to worry about the future of your content. As long as you’re willing to explore and adapt, you’re sure to find the right tool for your brand.

Gaming, cooking, and art streams have great community-focused tools like Twitch, Discord, and Talky.

Streamers looking for massive audiences and reach can use Facebook Live and YouTube Live.

Whatever you’re looking for, you may find the right Google Hangouts on Air replacement right here.

What alternative to Google Hangouts on Air is your favorite?

The post 10 Alternatives to Google Hangouts on Air appeared first on Neil Patel.

source https://neilpatel.com/blog/alternatives-google-hangouts/

10 SaaS Tools For Sales

There’s no disputing the growth in the software as a service (SaaS) sector. The SaaS market is growing at 18% a year, and by 2021 the mobile SaaS industry is forecast to be worth $7.4 billion. That’s great news for software as a service companies and marketers who depend on SaaS sales tools.

Using SaaS sales tools can help you maintain customer communication, effectively manage your customer base, oversee your team, and reach prospects in a more effortless way than ever before.

However, there are so many SaaS sales tools available it’s hard to narrow down the choices. Let’s review some of the options.

What Are SaaS Sales Tools?

SaaS sales tools help companies function, manage their schedules, optimize their conversions, and keep their teams updated.

Users of SaaS software download their cloud-based apps for business use. However, when you use SaaS tools, you don’t own the software outright. Usually, you’ll pay monthly, quarterly, or yearly subscription fees. For specific SaaS sales tools examples, think of MailChimp, HubSpot, and Zendesk.

Examples of Tools for SaaS Sales

Multiple SaaS tools are available to help optimize your marketing. They come in various categories, like customer relationship management (CRM), email finders, and automated outreach. Below I’m going to discuss some of them and the benefits for your business.

CRM SaaS Tools

CRM tools enable companies to manage their business relationships effectively. Although these SaaS sales tools are known as customer relationship management systems, their functions go far beyond that. You can also use them for:

• Internal communications with staff
• Maximizing your sales opportunities
• Managing your email subscribers
• Personalization
• Nurturing leads
• Customer relationship building and retention
• Finding new business prospects
• Organizing your data and tracking your communications

Pipedrive

Pipedrive aims to deliver qualified leads to help you grow your business. It’s an internet-based system that streamlines your activities, allowing you to nurture leads and convert them into clients.

A major benefit of Pipedrive is the 14-day free trial. It’s easy to get started, and you get full access without sharing your credit card details.

To begin your trial:

Click the “Try it Free” link.

Pipedrive gets plenty of positive reviews because it’s easy to customize. However, its ease of use, ability to track prospects, and intuitive interface also score highly among users.

But it’s not all good. Some find issues with integrating apps, while others find reporting is lacking. However, generally, Pipedrive is highly rated.

Salesmate

If you need SaaS sales tools that give flexibility and customization, you may find Salesmate becomes one of your go-to choices.  

Salesmate includes multiple features and may enable you and your team to meet goals while building customer relationships and increasing success levels. However, that’s not all it offers.

Like Pipedrive, Salesmate provides customization and integration with multiple tools. Intuit QuickBooks, Zapier, Slack, and Mailchimp are just some options that integrate with Salesmate.

Additionally, Salesmate provides excellent customer support, and its affordability gains it some extra points.

As with most SaaS tools for sales teams, you may find a few aspects don’t work so well. The main concerns are the occasional bug, and some users find time lags an issue.

Podio

Podio provides customization, aiming to allow you to run a range of projects smoothly and efficiently.

Podio’s feature-rich system may let you close sales leads and communicate effectively with your team, all while providing a single workspace.

Besides optimizing your organization, you can manage tasks, share files, create workflows, and web forms.

There are already some great positives there, but Podio still has more to offer. For example, it syncs with well-known apps like FreshBooks, Zendesk, Evernote.

However, I ought to point out some of the negatives. The top complaint appears to be a lack of Google calendar integration, and others find the learning curve a bit steep due to Podio’s multiple features.

To get started, you can sign up for a free plan, which will give you access to task management and apps and workspaces.

SaaS for Automated Email Outreach

Email outreach is at the heart of many businesses. However, it’s time-consuming, most emails never get answered, and reaching the right people at the right time is often the most challenging part. Using automated tools can help, which is why most companies surveyed say they use automation.

By sending regular, targeted emails to your subscribers and prospects at specific times, you may be more likely to start a conversation or at least move a prospect further along the customer journey.

Here, I’ll look at a selection of the automated email outreach SaaS sales tools available.

Klenty

Rather than spending your time sending out cold emails and following up, Klenty automates these tasks. With Klenty, you can send out personalized emails and follow-ups at a high volume, and you can integrate it with tools like Pipedrive and Salesforce.

In addition to automation and personalization, Klenty offers deliverability and can reduce repetition. Other pluses include affordability and easy email scheduling. If you want a complete system, you can integrate Klenty with a CRM.

Just a couple of negatives, though. You may find the UI looks dated, and it could work better with mobile devices.

Postaga

Postaga is an outreach tool. It:

• Automates outreach
• Promotes content
• Creates backlinks and social shares

You can also use Postaga to find key contacts, discover guest posting opportunities, and analyze your content.

In addition, Postaga comes with an AI outreach assistant built in. If you want to try before you buy, Postaga offers a free plan.

On the downside, some find Postaga challenging to get a grip on. However, Postaga has plenty of tutorials available to provide guidance and offers a responsive customer service team.

MailShake

Another email automation tool is MailShake. It’s a simple to use platform aimed at delivering more prospects to your sales team. The program provides tools, templates, and automation, which combine to streamline your outreach efforts and increase your ROI.

Like Klenty, MailShake allows you to send large volumes of personalized emails to potential customers. You can then establish a set of tasks designed to engage with prospects through email and phone.

One benefit of MailShake is its live training and concierge onboarding, which makes it accessible to everyone.

However, some are iffy on MailShake’s limitations. It only works with Gmail or G Suite, and some feel it’s a bit pricey.

MailShake provides two packages: $59 per month for email outreach and $99 per month for sales engagement.

Yesware

Are you looking for a set of straightforward outreach SaaS sales tools that provide you with the essentials for prospecting, scheduling meetings, and following up? Then the Yesware add-on for Outlook and Gmail could be just what you need.

In addition to its tracking, reporting, and analytics features, Yesware gives you template analysis. This function allows you to see how well your templates perform and if they need some tweaking for better results.

Another feature worth highlighting is the “campaigns” dashboard for viewing your open, click, and connect rates.

Yesware offers three plans: Pro, Premium, and Enterprise. Pro ($15 per month with an annual subscription) is relatively limited, but it can give you some of the essential information you need. Premium ($35 per month with a yearly subscription) allows more automation and customization, and Enterprise ($65 monthly with an annual subscription) lets you access all the site’s features.

SaaS and Email Address Finders

Finding the exact contact details for the correct person is a challenge all marketers face. However, this task may be made simpler with an email address finder.

Email finders exist to help you locate the contact details you’re searching for. They generally offer several potential email contacts and other essential information like phone numbers and social media details.

Some are free, but with limitations, while others charge a monthly fee and integrate with CRM systems.

RocketReach

RocketReach connects marketers with decision-makers and uses the world’s “largest and most accurate database of emails and direct dials.” According to their site, RocketReach holds contact information for millions of professionals.

It’s easy to get started. Just download the Chrome or Edge extension or sign up to try it out.

If their basic search doesn’t give you the information you need, there’s always the advanced search option.

Another way RocketReach could aid your marketing is through its outreach service. This allows you to send emails from your regular mailbox and enables you to fine-tune your communications through email analytics.

• Bulk lookups
• Salesforce and Zapier integrations
• AngelList.and LinkedIn lookups

RocketReach is a bit pricier than some other options. Their Essentials level at $588 per year allows 1,920 lookups all year, while Pro ($1,188) allows $4,500 and Ultimate ($2,988) gives you 12,000. But, the features may make this option worth it if you have the room in your budget.

Dropcontact

If you’re looking for an email address finder that integrates with tools like HubSpot, Salesforce, and Pipedrive, consider Dropcontact.

As well as providing essential contact details and CRM integration, Dropcontact identifies duplicates, merges contact files, and provides verified B2B emails and phone details.

As this company is based in France, its pricing is in euros—and its prices begin at only 16 euros per month.

LeadLeaper

Have you ever looked at a LinkedIn profile and thought you’d love to connect with the person via direct email without contacting them to ask for that information? LeadLeaper lets you do that. Simply go to the LinkedIn profile you’re interested in, click the LeadLeaper icon in your browser, and you should get their contact info.

Available as a Chrome extension, one of Leadleaper’s most obvious advantages is its free option. The free version provides access to 100 leads a month and LeadLeapers’ lead manager.

To unlock other features like integration with G Suite, duplicate deletion, and multi-lead management, you’ll need to upgrade the Growth package at $19 a month or the Professional subscription at $29 a month.

A considerable advantage of LeadLeaper is its affordability and tracking features. It also rates highly for its usability and integration with LinkedIn Navigator.

On the negative side, you may find the lack of customization an issue, and there’s a couple of complaints about the bounce rate. However, LeadLeaper is highly rated overall, and it can count Gartner, IBM, and Amazon among its many clients.

B2B Lead Databases and SaaS

Successful marketing begins with a well-organized list of prospects. You might call this your B2B lead database, or you may have an alternative name for it. Either way, a detailed B2B lead database includes quality contact data along with the information you need to market to your prospects.

Here’s a quick look at two of the most popular B2B lead databases around.

ZoomInfo

Designed with B2B sales and marketing teams in mind, ZoomInfo is a cloud-based market intelligence platform. It gives marketers access to an extensive database. Further, it has numerous SaaS sales tools built in to help you target your services at the right time, such as their streaming intent tool.

You’ll find a contact and company search option for those looking for the basics, and the ReachOut lead generation Chrome extension is another useful add-on.

There are plenty of other positives as well, including Zoom University and a custom solution option.

There are some minuses I should highlight, though. The main one is some feel contact details need updating more often, and some users struggle with integration.

Leadiro

Leadiro is a B2B data platform holding the details of 49 million contacts. Its features include geotargeting, prospecting tools, and targeted list creation.

You’ll find a free trial and free subscription available, which gives you unlimited database access. Paid for packages start at $99 a month.

Leadiro scores highly for its ease of use and quality data. However, like similar systems, you may find duplicates, and the interface looks dated to some.

Conclusion

SaaS sales tools make every stage of the marketing process more manageable. From finding the necessary contact details to managing conversations, automating outreach, and nurturing leads, you’ll likely find a SaaS tool available that will help your business in the areas you need it most.

Not every tool is perfect, and they won’t all be suited to your company. However, the SaaS tools for business I’ve detailed are highly rated overall, and they’ve attracted many satisfied users.

Perhaps the most significant benefit of many of these SaaS sales tools is they integrate well with other platforms to streamline your processes further and maximize your results.

What SaaS sales tools do you find useful?

The post 10 SaaS Tools For Sales appeared first on Neil Patel.

source https://neilpatel.com/blog/sales-tools/

10 SaaS Tools For Sales

There’s no disputing the growth in the software as a service (SaaS) sector. The SaaS market is growing at 18% a year, and by 2021 the mobile SaaS industry is forecast to be worth $7.4 billion. That’s great news for software as a service companies and marketers who depend on SaaS sales tools.

Using SaaS sales tools can help you maintain customer communication, effectively manage your customer base, oversee your team, and reach prospects in a more effortless way than ever before.

However, there are so many SaaS sales tools available it’s hard to narrow down the choices. Let’s review some of the options.

What Are SaaS Sales Tools?

SaaS sales tools help companies function, manage their schedules, optimize their conversions, and keep their teams updated.

Users of SaaS software download their cloud-based apps for business use. However, when you use SaaS tools, you don’t own the software outright. Usually, you’ll pay monthly, quarterly, or yearly subscription fees. For specific SaaS sales tools examples, think of MailChimp, HubSpot, and Zendesk.

Examples of Tools for SaaS Sales

Multiple SaaS tools are available to help optimize your marketing. They come in various categories, like customer relationship management (CRM), email finders, and automated outreach. Below I’m going to discuss some of them and the benefits for your business.

CRM SaaS Tools

CRM tools enable companies to manage their business relationships effectively. Although these SaaS sales tools are known as customer relationship management systems, their functions go far beyond that. You can also use them for:

• Internal communications with staff
• Maximizing your sales opportunities
• Managing your email subscribers
• Personalization
• Nurturing leads
• Customer relationship building and retention
• Finding new business prospects
• Organizing your data and tracking your communications

Pipedrive

Pipedrive aims to deliver qualified leads to help you grow your business. It’s an internet-based system that streamlines your activities, allowing you to nurture leads and convert them into clients.

A major benefit of Pipedrive is the 14-day free trial. It’s easy to get started, and you get full access without sharing your credit card details.

To begin your trial:

Click the “Try it Free” link.

Pipedrive gets plenty of positive reviews because it’s easy to customize. However, its ease of use, ability to track prospects, and intuitive interface also score highly among users.

But it’s not all good. Some find issues with integrating apps, while others find reporting is lacking. However, generally, Pipedrive is highly rated.

Salesmate

If you need SaaS sales tools that give flexibility and customization, you may find Salesmate becomes one of your go-to choices.  

Salesmate includes multiple features and may enable you and your team to meet goals while building customer relationships and increasing success levels. However, that’s not all it offers.

Like Pipedrive, Salesmate provides customization and integration with multiple tools. Intuit QuickBooks, Zapier, Slack, and Mailchimp are just some options that integrate with Salesmate.

Additionally, Salesmate provides excellent customer support, and its affordability gains it some extra points.

As with most SaaS tools for sales teams, you may find a few aspects don’t work so well. The main concerns are the occasional bug, and some users find time lags an issue.

Podio

Podio provides customization, aiming to allow you to run a range of projects smoothly and efficiently.

Podio’s feature-rich system may let you close sales leads and communicate effectively with your team, all while providing a single workspace.

Besides optimizing your organization, you can manage tasks, share files, create workflows, and web forms.

There are already some great positives there, but Podio still has more to offer. For example, it syncs with well-known apps like FreshBooks, Zendesk, Evernote.

However, I ought to point out some of the negatives. The top complaint appears to be a lack of Google calendar integration, and others find the learning curve a bit steep due to Podio’s multiple features.

To get started, you can sign up for a free plan, which will give you access to task management and apps and workspaces.

SaaS for Automated Email Outreach

Email outreach is at the heart of many businesses. However, it’s time-consuming, most emails never get answered, and reaching the right people at the right time is often the most challenging part. Using automated tools can help, which is why most companies surveyed say they use automation.

By sending regular, targeted emails to your subscribers and prospects at specific times, you may be more likely to start a conversation or at least move a prospect further along the customer journey.

Here, I’ll look at a selection of the automated email outreach SaaS sales tools available.

Klenty

Rather than spending your time sending out cold emails and following up, Klenty automates these tasks. With Klenty, you can send out personalized emails and follow-ups at a high volume, and you can integrate it with tools like Pipedrive and Salesforce.

In addition to automation and personalization, Klenty offers deliverability and can reduce repetition. Other pluses include affordability and easy email scheduling. If you want a complete system, you can integrate Klenty with a CRM.

Just a couple of negatives, though. You may find the UI looks dated, and it could work better with mobile devices.

Postaga

Postaga is an outreach tool. It:

• Automates outreach
• Promotes content
• Creates backlinks and social shares

You can also use Postaga to find key contacts, discover guest posting opportunities, and analyze your content.

In addition, Postaga comes with an AI outreach assistant built in. If you want to try before you buy, Postaga offers a free plan.

On the downside, some find Postaga challenging to get a grip on. However, Postaga has plenty of tutorials available to provide guidance and offers a responsive customer service team.

MailShake

Another email automation tool is MailShake. It’s a simple to use platform aimed at delivering more prospects to your sales team. The program provides tools, templates, and automation, which combine to streamline your outreach efforts and increase your ROI.

Like Klenty, MailShake allows you to send large volumes of personalized emails to potential customers. You can then establish a set of tasks designed to engage with prospects through email and phone.

One benefit of MailShake is its live training and concierge onboarding, which makes it accessible to everyone.

However, some are iffy on MailShake’s limitations. It only works with Gmail or G Suite, and some feel it’s a bit pricey.

MailShake provides two packages: $59 per month for email outreach and $99 per month for sales engagement.

Yesware

Are you looking for a set of straightforward outreach SaaS sales tools that provide you with the essentials for prospecting, scheduling meetings, and following up? Then the Yesware add-on for Outlook and Gmail could be just what you need.

In addition to its tracking, reporting, and analytics features, Yesware gives you template analysis. This function allows you to see how well your templates perform and if they need some tweaking for better results.

Another feature worth highlighting is the “campaigns” dashboard for viewing your open, click, and connect rates.

Yesware offers three plans: Pro, Premium, and Enterprise. Pro ($15 per month with an annual subscription) is relatively limited, but it can give you some of the essential information you need. Premium ($35 per month with a yearly subscription) allows more automation and customization, and Enterprise ($65 monthly with an annual subscription) lets you access all the site’s features.

SaaS and Email Address Finders

Finding the exact contact details for the correct person is a challenge all marketers face. However, this task may be made simpler with an email address finder.

Email finders exist to help you locate the contact details you’re searching for. They generally offer several potential email contacts and other essential information like phone numbers and social media details.

Some are free, but with limitations, while others charge a monthly fee and integrate with CRM systems.

RocketReach

RocketReach connects marketers with decision-makers and uses the world’s “largest and most accurate database of emails and direct dials.” According to their site, RocketReach holds contact information for millions of professionals.

It’s easy to get started. Just download the Chrome or Edge extension or sign up to try it out.

If their basic search doesn’t give you the information you need, there’s always the advanced search option.

Another way RocketReach could aid your marketing is through its outreach service. This allows you to send emails from your regular mailbox and enables you to fine-tune your communications through email analytics.

• Bulk lookups
• Salesforce and Zapier integrations
• AngelList.and LinkedIn lookups

RocketReach is a bit pricier than some other options. Their Essentials level at $588 per year allows 1,920 lookups all year, while Pro ($1,188) allows $4,500 and Ultimate ($2,988) gives you 12,000. But, the features may make this option worth it if you have the room in your budget.

Dropcontact

If you’re looking for an email address finder that integrates with tools like HubSpot, Salesforce, and Pipedrive, consider Dropcontact.

As well as providing essential contact details and CRM integration, Dropcontact identifies duplicates, merges contact files, and provides verified B2B emails and phone details.

As this company is based in France, its pricing is in euros—and its prices begin at only 16 euros per month.

LeadLeaper

Have you ever looked at a LinkedIn profile and thought you’d love to connect with the person via direct email without contacting them to ask for that information? LeadLeaper lets you do that. Simply go to the LinkedIn profile you’re interested in, click the LeadLeaper icon in your browser, and you should get their contact info.

Available as a Chrome extension, one of Leadleaper’s most obvious advantages is its free option. The free version provides access to 100 leads a month and LeadLeapers’ lead manager.

To unlock other features like integration with G Suite, duplicate deletion, and multi-lead management, you’ll need to upgrade the Growth package at $19 a month or the Professional subscription at $29 a month.

A considerable advantage of LeadLeaper is its affordability and tracking features. It also rates highly for its usability and integration with LinkedIn Navigator.

On the negative side, you may find the lack of customization an issue, and there’s a couple of complaints about the bounce rate. However, LeadLeaper is highly rated overall, and it can count Gartner, IBM, and Amazon among its many clients.

B2B Lead Databases and SaaS

Successful marketing begins with a well-organized list of prospects. You might call this your B2B lead database, or you may have an alternative name for it. Either way, a detailed B2B lead database includes quality contact data along with the information you need to market to your prospects.

Here’s a quick look at two of the most popular B2B lead databases around.

ZoomInfo

Designed with B2B sales and marketing teams in mind, ZoomInfo is a cloud-based market intelligence platform. It gives marketers access to an extensive database. Further, it has numerous SaaS sales tools built in to help you target your services at the right time, such as their streaming intent tool.

You’ll find a contact and company search option for those looking for the basics, and the ReachOut lead generation Chrome extension is another useful add-on.

There are plenty of other positives as well, including Zoom University and a custom solution option.

There are some minuses I should highlight, though. The main one is some feel contact details need updating more often, and some users struggle with integration.

Leadiro

Leadiro is a B2B data platform holding the details of 49 million contacts. Its features include geotargeting, prospecting tools, and targeted list creation.

You’ll find a free trial and free subscription available, which gives you unlimited database access. Paid for packages start at $99 a month.

Leadiro scores highly for its ease of use and quality data. However, like similar systems, you may find duplicates, and the interface looks dated to some.

Conclusion

SaaS sales tools make every stage of the marketing process more manageable. From finding the necessary contact details to managing conversations, automating outreach, and nurturing leads, you’ll likely find a SaaS tool available that will help your business in the areas you need it most.

Not every tool is perfect, and they won’t all be suited to your company. However, the SaaS tools for business I’ve detailed are highly rated overall, and they’ve attracted many satisfied users.

Perhaps the most significant benefit of many of these SaaS sales tools is they integrate well with other platforms to streamline your processes further and maximize your results.

What SaaS sales tools do you find useful?

The post 10 SaaS Tools For Sales appeared first on Neil Patel.

source https://neilpatel.com/blog/sales-tools/

Best WordPress Themes

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All businesses need a good website.

The sites must load quickly, and they need to have a winning design.

The good news is there’s a wide variety of excellent WordPress themes that do just that.

WordPress themes use different layouts to present content beautifully and boost engagement with your brand.

I’ve put together a guide to the best WordPress themes available now to help get you started.

The Top 7 Options For WordPress Themes: 

1. Astra — The Best WordPress Theme for Beginners
2. Sydney — The Best WordPress Theme for Freelancers
3. Foodie Pro — The Best WordPress Theme for Food Bloggers
4. Jayla — The Best WordPress Theme for Online Shops
5. Zakra — The Best WordPress Theme for SEO
6. Tusant — The Best WordPress Theme for Podcast Creators
7. Travel Way — The Best WordPress Theme for Travel Bloggers

How to Choose The Best WordPress Themes For You

Deciding on a single WordPress theme for your brand can be overwhelming. There are tons of options out there, and it can be difficult to know where to start. If you’re struggling to pick one, try thinking about the complete picture.

The first aspect to think about is whether you should get a free or paid WordPress theme. The difference isn’t just in the pricing.

A free WordPress theme can offer a lot to the right person, but it’s worth knowing some of the drawbacks. The main one is the lack of ongoing support for that specific theme, which, in most cases, can mean you’re left tracking down the original creator’s email for help when something breaks.

Far from ideal.

Not to mention that the same free themes can pop up on many websites, taking away originality from your branding.

But you can usually try out a theme for free before deciding to invest in the full paid version, so they do have their uses.

Paid themes are a better bet for brands in general, though. They generally include regular updates and support, higher levels of customization, and higher-quality code.

Another thing to mention is that WordPress.org, or ‘self-hosted WordPress,’ (as opposed to WordPress.com) is the best bet for most businesses as it gives a greater level of control and is cheaper overall. This extends to themes, availability, and customization.

With that said, I’ve seen some top brands on WordPress.com, or ‘hosted WordPress,’ with some genuinely dazzling themes, too.

If you’re in doubt, I’d still say go for WordPress.org.

Other key things to think about are the following:

Theme Functionality

Thinking about functionality is very important. I’m talking about what you need a site to do to conduct business.

Do you need social media icons that link out to brand accounts? How about a comment section or forum, and what about the e-commerce side of things like a shop?

In other words, you need to think hard about the features you need.

The great news is that WordPress plugins can add a significant number of extras whenever you want, but it’s worth looking into the functionality of a theme you like.

For example, specific themes might be coded in such a way that adding a forum could prove difficult.

If you like a theme, make sure you’ve done your research before buying it and that it can support your core needs.

Site Responsiveness

How responsive a site is can make it or break it. It’s that simple. There are more devices out there than ever before, and the list keeps on growing.

Can the theme you’ve chosen adjust to these different devices?

A mobile reader needs to have the same complete experience as a desktop user, so any good WordPress theme will adapt to this on a case-by-case basis. Don’t forget that Google has made it mandatory for sites to be mobile responsive, which can affect your rankings in a big way.

Mobile traffic is increasing every year, so a responsive WordPress theme is essential. Most WordPress themes include this as standard, but not all do, and free themes often don’t. Think carefully about this when researching.

Page Builders

A good page builder will allow you to drag and drop to create pages with little fuss.

Most WordPress themes come bundled with page builders, but not all of them do. Some themes may even use a bespoke page builder that could slow down a site with unwanted code.

Ideally, you want a WordPress theme optimized to work with the best page builders, particularly if you have a preference.

You could find a WordPress theme that provides almost everything you want, only to find it’s incompatible with your favorite builder. Or buy one that features a proprietary builder, but it’s just not very good. Too late, though, because you’ve already purchased it.

Browser Support

A theme can load smoothly and look beautiful on your browser, but what about on your customer’s browser? It’s worth noting that not all themes will work correctly on every browser, so a good deal of testing is a sound idea.

You can usually check a browser’s compatibility under a WordPress theme’s details, but the developers won’t always list this. In that case, test it yourself.

It’s as simple as downloading a few of the most popular browsers, loading up your site with its new theme, and seeing what works and what doesn’t.

More often than not, you’ll find an issue or two that only occurs on a specific browser. I’ve seen pages breaking inexplicably on certain browsers while others were fine. This is often an overlooked area, so it’s prudent to get ahead of any potential issues.

Different Types of WordPress Themes

WordPress can be a little more complicated than you might first think. It isn’t just free themes versus paid themes or basic versus premium themes.

There are quite a few different groupings of themes, but they can be split down into the following core clusters:

Starter Themes

A starter WordPress theme is essentially a skeleton of a theme. These themes offer the vital infrastructure a WordPress theme needs, but that’s all.

From there, it’s up to you to create the rest of the site. For some brands, that might be just what they want, and for others, it might be a scary thought and too much work.

The idea is that these themes are minimal in design and are malleable and very customizable.

Framework Themes

Framework WordPress themes are all about meshing together different parts. A framework theme combines a parent and child theme into a fully functional and customizable theme.

A child theme is effectively an add-on that goes on top of a parent theme. This allows you to modify and tweak a site to your heart’s content.

A parent theme, on the other hand, is the base theme underneath. It can operate alone, but you can’t modify it without the child theme’s help.

The advantage of these themes is that they can be turned into something unique using the parent theme’s existing structure as the starting point.

Tailored Themes

Tailored themes are another category. These are themes designed by a professional team tailored to your specific niche and needs.

You can tailor a theme yourself, of course, but if you have the budget, a theme designed and created by a team could prove to be far more successful and can be built exactly how you want.

Be warned, though, these can be expensive.

#1 – Astra — The Best WordPress Theme for Beginners

We all have to start somewhere, and the same is true with WordPress themes. Where do you even begin? The answer is with Astra.

Astra is our top pick for WordPress beginners for its slick customization options, high level of functionality, and the considerable number of free extensions available for it.

I mentioned earlier that ensuring great page builders were compatible with a theme was important, and Astra doesn’t disappoint. Some of the most popular page builder plugins, like Elementor and Beaver Builder, are easily used with it.

On top of that, Astra offers a lightweight experience, allowing it to load exceptionally quickly. That’s without mentioning the super easy customization and pre-built options for blogs, portfolios, and online shops.

Other key features of the Astra theme include:

• Dedicated sidebar
• WooCommerce ready
• Mega-menu
• Mobile headers
• Fluid layout
• Spacing control
• Custom fonts
• Infinite loading

In terms of pricing, you can get Astra for free, and this provides you with a basic theme able to get you up and running. For some, it might be all they need.

There is also a pro version of Astra available that offers additional settings and options. The pro version is a must if you need a great deal of customization and new layouts. You can purchase it for $59.

#2 – Sydney — The Best WordPress Theme for Freelancers

Whether you’re a freelance marketer, editor, or content writer, an excellent theme to show off your accomplishments and details is essential.

That is where Sydney comes in. This is a powerful and feature-rich theme ideal for freelancers, both those new to the industry and those who have been doing it for years and might want to change things up.

Sydney has more than 600 different Google fonts to choose from, and users have access to a full-screen slider, which can make a strong first impression on potential clients.

I also like the custom Elementor blocks that can be designed just how you want, enabling you to focus on getting your branding right.

Other features of the Sydney theme include:

• Slider or static image header
• Translation ready
• Social buttons
• Cross-browser support
• Regular updates
• Live customizer
• Parallax backgrounds
• Color controls

Sydney has a free version, and you’ll have access to a lot of vital features.

With that said, the pro license only costs $59, and the upgrade will allow you to take things to the next level with extra page options, templates, WooCommerce, video headers, and more.

It’s a good idea for most freelancers and small businesses.

#3 – Foodie Pro — The Best WordPress Theme for Food Bloggers

This compelling WordPress theme is perfect for sharing new recipes and the best cooking tips with your online audience.

Minimalist and clean, yet offering loads of features and specific design choices, you can’t go wrong with Foodie Pro.

Consisting of the Genesis Framework—both secure and search-engine-optimized—Foodie Pro offers an almost countless number of color and typography options.

You’ll be able to upload your brand’s logo quickly, and a selection of pre-built templates only helps speed things up if you’re in a hurry to launch.

Other features of Foodie Pro include:

• Customizable header
• Mobile responsive
• Widget areas
• Recipe index
• Works with popular plugins
• Child theme based on the Genesis Framework
• WordPress customizer
• Lightweight design

There’s no free version of Foodie Pro, but you can buy the theme and complete framework package for $129.95, which I think is a fair offer based on what you can do with it.

There’s also a Genesis Pro option for those who love the framework and want to invest further. The Genesis Pro variant includes access to additional support and every future theme the company releases.

Genesis Pro is a good choice for those with big plans and costs $360 a year.

#4 – Jayla — The Best WordPress Theme for Online Shops

The Jayla theme offers a minimal and contemporary approach to the e-commerce industry, allowing you to create a store and sell products online with ease.

Jayla is built around the popular and powerful WooCommerce plugin, which means you’ll have access to a large number of features.

Jayla also gives you access to multi-block builders to speed up your site’s creation and an almost unlimited number of colors for your layout.

Perhaps most impressive is the wide variety of shops you can build with the theme. From furniture shops to tech stores and everything in-between, Jayla is useful in most e-commerce scenarios.

Other highlights of the Jayla theme include:

• One-click install demo
• Lifetime support
• Header and foot builder
• Drag and drop page builder
• Woo product filter
• Compatible with Yoast SEO
• WooCommerce product wishlist
• Supports over 800 Google fonts

On the pricing side, Jayla costs just $59 for the regular license, which is more than enough to get your store started.

That regular license also adds in future updates for no extra cost and six months of support with site bugs and other issues.

If you want additional support, you can extend it to 12 months for $17.63.

#5 – Zakra — The Best WordPress Theme for SEO

Zakra isn’t just a memorable name—no, this stylish WordPress theme will help your brand rank higher on Google.

Zakra is optimized for the largest search engines, loads quickly, and supports almost all essential SEO plugins.

One particularly impressive feature is the 50 or so demos that are pre-built and ready to go with the theme.

These demos cover multiple scenarios you may need and can be quickly set up with a one-click demo importer. From there, you’ll be able to customize the demo to your liking.

One major advantage is the speed at which you can do this, so it’s an excellent option for those short on time.

The Zakra theme also delivers:

• Lightweight designWooCommerce integration
• Suitable across multiple devices
• Compatible with key page builders
• Translation-ready theme
• Right-to-left text direction languages
• Dynamic, customizable areas
• Menu styling option

Zakra is free to use, but be aware that multiple features are locked out. Once you’re happy with the theme, you can upgrade to one of the more premium packages.

There are four pricing tiers, and all of them feature the Zakra Pro extras. The following prices are for lifetime access:

• Personal: $112 for 1 site license
• Personal Plus: $139 for 3 site licenses plus 30+ premium starter demos and Elementor companion
• Professional: $259 for 10 site licenses plus 30+ premium starter demos and Elementor companion
• Developer: $359 for unlimited site licenses plus 30+ premium starter demos, Elementor companion, and future plugins

You can also choose to pay via an annual fee. I think the Personal Plus package with a lifetime subscription would be a great option for most.

#6 – Tusant — The Best WordPress Theme for Podcast Creators

Tusant by Second Line is a first-rate theme that’s best suited for podcast creators, musicians, voice-over actors, and music streaming.

While many themes can offer flashy designs, Tusant is practical, too, allowing you to embed audio and video from multiple sources.

For example, a podcast creator would be able to embed an entire ongoing series with ease, while musicians could display their latest work. The developers say Tusant can showcase an unlimited number of entries.

What’s more, Tusant supports all of the vital podcasting plugins such as PowerPress, Seriously Simple Podcasting, and PodLove. You can host MP3 files locally, too, so there’s little to get in the way of your creativity.

Tusant also offers the following:

• Over 900 Google fonts supported 
• One-click theme install
• Dedicated support
• Responsive mobile design
• WordPress built-in customizer
• Full documentation for each section
• Translation ready
• Page builder support included

For the pricing, there are three distinct tiers from the Tusant creators:

• Single Podcast Theme: $69 for one Second Line Podcast WordPress theme of your choice + 12 months of updates and support
• Podcast Theme Bundle: $139 for access to all Second Lines Podcast WordPress themes + 12 months of updates and support
• Lifetime access: $389 for unlimited lifetime access to all Second Lines Podcast  WordPress themes + lifetime updates and support

Second Line currently has five different podcast WordPress themes. Tusant offers multiple layouts, beautiful displays for playlists, and supports over 20 podcast hosting providers. If you’re a podcaster, you cannot go wrong with Tusant.

#7 – Travel Way — The Best WordPress Theme for Travel Bloggers

Travel Way is perfect for travel bloggers and photographers who want to show their locations’ real beauty. Travel Way is also great for travel agencies and portfolios.

With call-to-action buttons, multiple sections, and handy social icons, it’s a theme ready for the modern traveler.

The free version of Travel Way is flexible and highly customizable, with the option of setting up galleries, booking forms, services, and portfolios. There’s a huge amount you can do with this theme.

Even better, it works well with all of the major browsers, is very responsive, and offers unlimited pages for each section of your site.

Other attractive features of Travel Way include:

• Featured sections
• More than nine custom widgets
• Testimonials
• Tour packages
• Custom sidebar areas
• Full layout controls
• Page builder compatible
• Extensive slider options

The pro version features advanced custom widgets, multiple options for comment sections, more menu and logo positions, and quite a bit more.

It costs just $55 for personal use and $99 for developers, so if you’re pretty set on the theme, I wouldn’t hesitate to upgrade for the rest of the features.

Summary

There are tons of beautiful WordPress themes out there, and my list has given you just a snapshot of everything you can do on the platform. But many themes work better for specific uses.

The picks on the list offer some of the best themes available in their respective areas:

• Astra — The Best WordPress Theme for Beginners
• Sydney — The Best WordPress Theme for Freelancers
• Foodie Pro — The Best WordPress Theme for Food Bloggers
• Jayla — The Best WordPress Theme for Online Shops
• Zakra — The Best WordPress Theme for SEO
• Tusant — The Best WordPress Theme for Podcast Creators
• Travel Way — The Best WordPress Theme for Travel Bloggers

Whether you’re a freelancer, travel blogger, podcaster, or you want to launch an online shop, WordPress has got you covered.

The best part is how much you can do with a single theme, so dive in and get started.

The sky really is the limit.

The post Best WordPress Themes appeared first on Neil Patel.

source https://neilpatel.com/blog/best-wordpress-themes/

10 Free Google Tools All Content Marketers Should Use

If you consider yourself a content marketing professional, there’s a good chance you already use Google tools the make your life easier.

But regardless of how much experience you have and the results you’ve achieved in the past, you know there are always new ways to boost your performance.

Social media, just the right keyword tool, Google’s Keyword Planner, honing your search term — these things can all have a big impact on your volume and your success as a content marketing pro.

Many people look at Google and see nothing more than a search engine. While there’s nothing wrong with wanting to see your website at the top of the search engine giant’s results, you can’t ignore the process for reaching this goal.

When it comes to content marketing, the tools you use, and the strategies you employ will greatly impact the end result.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a content marketing beginner or have many years of experience under your belt, this post could change your approach.

Below, I’ll discuss 10 free Google tools that all content marketers should use.

You may not use all of these tools, and some might not suit your marketing strategy. Even so, I’m confident that you’ll find one or two that can alter your approach for the better.

1. Google AdWords: Keyword Planner

Are you seeking a tool that helps you find and target the best keywords for your business?

While there are many to choose from, the Google Keyword Planner remains one of the best ways to conduct keyword research.

There’s a lot to like about this free tool, including the fact that it’s extremely simple to use.

As a content marketer, you should always be searching for keywords that can give your website or a particular blog post a boost.

My top suggestion for using this keyword tool is simple: experiment, experiment, and then experiment some more.

The more searches you run, the more you’ll understand how the tool works. Also, multiple searches give you a better idea of which keywords best suit your site.

For example, “content marketing” may be your primary keyword. In a perfect world, you’d rank at the top of Google for this term.

However, you know that this will be difficult. You also know that there are long-tail terms that can increase your search results.

This tool helps you uncover these terms. Check out this screenshot:

With this in mind, you now have a better idea of what to do next. Maybe you find that “b2b content marketing” is a keyword that makes sense for a future blog post.

At that point, you can plug the term, in as your primary keyword, to dig up even more long-tail ideas.

Even though Google Keyword Planner appears to be nothing more than a basic tool, it does everything right for content marketers who want to uncover keywords that can improve the bottom line: the search result it delivers.

Pro tip: If you want more information, try a dedicated keyword planner like my tool Ubersuggest.

2. Google Analytics

What goals have you set for your content marketing strategy?

If you don’t know the answer to this question, now’s the time to take a step back and reassess your situation.

If you’ve already set a few goals, there’s a good chance that many of them are based on search engine results and related statistics. If so, you need to become familiar with the inner workings of Google Analytics.

No two people use Google Analytics in the same manner. But, there are several things to keep in mind if you’re a content marketing professional.

To start, you can use this tool to get an instant snapshot of your performance over a particular period of time.

This alone will give you a clear idea of whether or not you’re on track to achieving your goals.

From here, you have the ability to dig deeper for more data.

As you click-through to each section, you’ll find yourself digging deeper and deeper. For example, I always enjoy checking out my top pages for a particular time period.

This gives me a clear idea of what’s working and what isn’t, in regards to topic selection, the type of content that I’m providing, and whether readers are sticking around to see what I have to say.

The more you use Google Analytics, the easier it is to focus your time on the data that has the biggest impact on your site.

3. Google Search Console

Similar in many ways to Google Analytics, the time you spend with this free tool is never a waste.

There’s so much to learn from the Google Search Console. You could soon find yourself spending hours combing through data.

In addition to reviewing your site’s overall health, there are several other things you can do with this tool.

My favorites are all listed under the Search Traffic drop-down:

For example, Search Analytics allows you to quickly analyze your performance on Google Search.

If you’ve ever wondered how your keywords are performing, you can click the Position box to learn more. This will show you the average position for all of the keywords that appear in Google Search.

Content marketers should become familiar with everything the Google Search Console can do for them. Even if you only use it to track a few key metrics, it’s well worth it in the long run.

4. Google Trends

Do you find it difficult to continually generate fresh ideas for your blog and other content marketing opportunities?

There’s no denying the fact that the search engine giant’s Keyword Planner provides hundreds of keywords related to your business and industry. Even so, this isn’t always good enough, when it comes to creating compelling content. In other words? You need another way to perform keyword research.

This is why I make it a habit of checking Google Trends, when I’m brainstorming new blog ideas.

With this tool, you can explore any topic to see what’s trending. You can also view “stories trending now,” to see if there’s anything that matches your industry and the approach that you want to take.

For example, the upcoming World Cup is sure to be a hot topic.

Is there a way to tie this into your blog or other content marketing efforts?

If you write about sports, you know there’ll be plenty of information to keep you busy. But, even if you don’t, you can use Google Trends to help you get creative.

Sticking with the example above, maybe you could write a blog post entitled: “How the World Cup is Using Marketing to Drive Views.”

With this title, you’re providing your audience with targeted information, while harnessing the power of a trending topic. It’s the best of both worlds.

You don’t need any experience or much time to use this tool. Simply type in your topic and review what Google spits out. From there, let your creative juices point you in the right direction.

5. Google Sheets

Content marketers need a system for recording and tracking data. Furthermore, there may be times when you want to share this information with other team members.

I’ve found Google Sheets to be one of the simplest and most efficient ways to record data, track changes, and collaborate with others.

Here’s an example. I’m often asked about the best way to track email outreach campaigns. While there are many software tools for this, some of which provide a high level of features, some people don’t want to part with the money.

While Google Sheets may not offer the exact same functionality as these tools, it’s still one of the best ways to remain organized. It still has plenty of advanced features, such as the ability to create pivot tables and sort data.

As long as you’re on-board with the idea of regularly updating your spreadsheet, it’s powerful enough to have a positive impact on your content marketing efforts.

Pro tip: you can also use Google Sheets to create a to-do list, which is something most content marketers heavily rely on. Even with a basic list, you’ll always have a clear idea of what you need to accomplish.

6. Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a Google tool that makes it easy to monitor the web for brand mentions, interesting new content, and news. Then, Google sends you an email once a day or once a week — your preference — with a notification if keywords you are interested in are mentioned.

In short, Google Alerts makes it easier to stay on top of news and new content without spending hours a day on social media.

For example, I could set a Google Alert for my name:

As a content marketer, I suggest setting alerts for:

• Your brand name
• Your personal name
• Key industry terms
• Major competitors

These alerts will help you see new trends fast and might even give you some great content to share on your social media channels.

7. Gmail

A big part of content marketing is getting in touch and staying in touch with a variety of contacts.

There will be times when you spend hours sharing a new blog post with influencers in your space. Since email is one of the best ways of doing so, you better be comfortable with the application you’re using.

Gmail has long been my favorite email client, thanks in large part to the built-in functionality. That being said, there’s more to it than meets the eye.

I use a variety of plugins to ensure that my Gmail account does exactly what I need. For example, WiseStamp helps me to create a custom signature. Along with this, I use FollowUp.cc, so that I never forget to follow-up on an important email related to my content marketing efforts.

You don’t have to use Gmail as your email provider, but I strongly suggest giving it a second look, if you’re open to making a change.

With so many plugins to choose from, you should be able to customize your inbox to meet your every need as a content marketer. This alone can save you quite a bit of time and money.

Pro tip: Even if you prefer another email provider for daily communication with coworkers and clients, you can still use a Gmail account to carry out many aspects of your content marketing strategy.

8. Google My Business

For some companies, GMB isn’t a big deal. For others, such as local businesses, this is not something you don’t want to overlook.

With Google My Business, you can easily get a free business listing on Google. Better yet, this gives you the opportunity to provide a variety of information, including, but not limited to, your phone number, address, and business category.

The benefits of using Google My Business include:

• The opportunity to get your business in front of customers interested in what you have to offer.
• People can learn more about your company, based on the information that you provide.
• Use images to show how your company is unique.
• Show off customer reviews.

Remember, there is more to content marketing than producing high quality blog posts.

Think about the word “content” for a second. Anything you write about your company and/or anything you can share with others can be a big part of your content marketing plan.

Since Google My Business listings are front and center in the search results, you probably want to use this as part of your content marketing strategy.

9. Google Docs

If you stay current with my blog, you know I do my best to publish new posts as often as possible.

There’s a lot that goes into creating high-quality blog posts, so I’m always seeking new ways to improve my efficiency.

While I’ve used many tools over the years, to improve efficiency, Google Docs remains one of my favorites. Not only is it free, but it’s extremely simple to use. On top of this, there are tons of features and plugins to experiment with.

Here are some of the things that Google Docs as I work through the creation of a blog post:

• Checks for spelling errors.
• Provides an accurate word count.
• Allows me to easily insert screenshots.
• Makes it simple to share the document with the rest of my team, such as my editor.

As you know, a big part of content marketing is content creation. If you’re doing a lot of writing, make sure you’re 100% comfortable with the tool that you’re using.

There are other options out there, such a Microsoft Word, but Google Docs has been my top choice for many years.

10. Google Calendar

How do you organize your day, as it relates to content marketing? What steps do you take to ensure that you’re maximizing the use of your time?

Google Calendar is one of the top organization tools among marketing professionals. It doesn’t have all of the features included in some of the paid tools, but it provides more than enough to keep you on track at all times.

Here are some of the ways that I like to use this free tool:

• Create events for important marketing tasks.
• Share my availability with team members.
• Better understand “open spots” in my schedule, as this allows me to make the most of each day.

I don’t use Google Calendar as often as some of the other tools on this list, but it has definitely improved the way I organize my day.

As somebody who understands the demands placed on a marketing professional, I suggest looking into what Google Calendar offers. It may improve the way that you operate.

Conclusion

With only 42 percent of B2B marketers claiming they have a sophisticated content marketing strategy, it goes without saying that there’s always room for improvement, from keyword research that can boost your search volume to using long-tail keywords in your blog posts.

Personally, I enjoy every tool developed by Google. Some are more effective and powerful than others, but each one deserves a second look.

Have you used any of these free Google tools to improve your content marketing efforts? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

The post 10 Free Google Tools All Content Marketers Should Use appeared first on Neil Patel.

source https://neilpatel.com/blog/10-free-google-tools-all-content-marketers-should-use/